This invention relates generally to releasable mountings for attaching covers and canopies to pickup truck beds and, more specifically, to improved track assemblies having interfitted male and female tracks to greatly facilitate mounting and removal of covers and canopies from pickup truck beds.
Conventionally, covers or canopies are attached to the beds of pickup trucks by screws, bolts, latches or other suitable fasteners. Removal and replacement of such covers or canopies is rather difficult and usually a two person undertaking. To remove such a conventionally mounted canopy or cover requires removal of all of the fasteners securing the cover or canopy to the bed. Then, the cover or canopy must be lifted in order to clear the bed. Reattachment or reassembly of the cover or canopy on the pickup truck bed is equally cumbersome and time consuming.
As a preliminary, it is noted that a number of terms are used in the art to describe covers or canopies for pickup truck beds. Currently, there are, generally speaking, two types of covers or canopies. One type is either a single or multiple segment flat cover which is dimensioned to either partially or, more commonly, completely cover the open bed of a pickup truck. These flat covers rest on the longitudinal, upper surfaces of the vertical side walls of the truck bed and the tailgate of the truck bed either simply abuts the rear edge of the cover or it may be latched to the rear edge of the cover. The other type of conventional cover or canopy is a four or five sided structure having vertical side walls extending upwardly from the sides and tailgate of the pickup truck bed and a roof which is generally in line with the cab of the truck. Commonly, these structures are called canopies on the west coast and caps on the east coast. In other sections of the country, these structures are variously known as covers, shells or toppers.
Prior attempts have been made to device and market track assemblies which would greatly facilitate the assembly and removal of a cover or canopy on to and off of a pickup truck bed. To date, success has been limited both in the original equipment market and in the after market. It has been this inventor's experience that there are several reasons for the situation. The primary ones are cost of the track assembly, difficulty and expense in mounting the track assembly and the need to stock a wide variety of different sizes in order to satisfy the market. For example, it has been found that no less than four different drill patterns and at least eight different sizes of track assemblies are necessary.
The following patents are representative of prior art developments to date. U.S. Pat. No. 3,773,380, issued Nov. 20, 1973 to Robert G. Stockdill discloses a pickup truck with male and female track members for slidably mounting a cover over the otherwise open bed of the pickup truck. The basic idea represented by this patent is sound but the tracks can be difficult to mount without binding and screws or bolts are employed which must be countersunk. This presents an undesirable cost and labor factor. A sliding cover employing a rather expensive roller ball and rail arrangement for slidably mounting the cover is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,901,548 issued Aug. 26, 1975 to John A. Seaman, Jr. Sliding pickup truck bed covers employing roller and track assemblies are disclosed in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,897,100 issued July 29, 1975 to Tom Gardner and 4,068,886 issued Jan. 17, 1978 to Richard B. Gostomski. A telescoping cover slidably mounted on a pickup truck bed by a taut cable and grommet assembly is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,252,363 issued Feb. 24, 1981 to Wilbrod Rodrigue. U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,199,188 issued Apr. 22, 1980 and 4,406,493 issued Sept. 27, 1983, both to Leonard N. Albrecht et al disclose flat cover sections installed on the open bed of a conventional pickup truck, the cover sections being slidably mounted by short male track sections received within elongate female tracks. A somewhat related disclosure is found in U.S. Pat. No. 3,820,840 issued June 28, 1974 to Jason A. Forsberg. This patent discloses a flexible truck cover slidably mounted on elongate male rails by short, female rail segments.
What the prior art fails to disclose is a suitable, marketable track assembly for slidably mounting a cover or canopy on the bed of a pickup truck, the system being suitable for both the original equipment and after market and which may be easily installed with a minimum of labor and material cost.